Trump's remarks in Charlottesville are "almost useless"

White House advisor Kellyanne Conway on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's remarks about the 2017 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, saying he condemned white nationalism and misinterpreted it.

Trump "condemned white nationalism and the neo-Nazis and the KKK during the Charlottesville incident," said Conway in a CNN "State of the Union." Speaking of "very good people on both sides", remarks for which Trump was widely criticized, she said that Trump "was talking about the debate over the removal of statues".

"He was not talking about the weekend at all," Conway said, adding, "If you continue your sentence, he says people have been there who have not registered with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. , which were near a renowned park and a statue being shot down.

Trump recently defended his remarks at the White Nationalist Rally, in which a neo-Nazi killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and wounded several others after leading a crowd of counter-partisans, claiming that his About were referring to one of the reasons the gathering: the removal of a monument to the Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a city park. Trump's comments came in response to the video of former Vice President Joe Biden announcing his presidential campaign last week, in which he criticized Trump's response to Charlottesville.

On Friday, Trump defended his remarks, saying that he "had perfectly responded" by saying that there were "very good people on both sides".

"If you look at what I said, you will see that this question has been answered perfectly," Trump said. "And I was talking about people who left because they were very attached to the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general."

"Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals," Trump added. "I've talked to many generals here, just at the White House, and a lot of people have thought of generals, they may think that he was their favorite general." The people were there to protest the robbery of Robert E. Lee's monument, everyone knows it. "

After insisting Sunday on Trump's perfect response in his Friday comments, Conway said, "When President Trump condemned racism, fanaticism, vicious violence, he then took many additional steps and called the neo -Nazis, white supremacists, … it's damn close to perfection. "

"All white supremacy, all neo-Nazis, all anti-Christians, all anti-Semitists, all anti-Muslim activities should be sentenced to death," she added. "It's the perfect answer."

Biden said in his video last week that in referring to "very good people on both sides", "Trump" attributed a moral equivalence between those who propagated hatred and those who had the courage to oppose it. ".

"And at that time, I knew that the threat to this country was different than the one I had seen in my life," Biden added.

In a Sunday interview on "This Week" on ABC, Rep. James Clyburn, DS.C, criticized Trump's praise for Lee, saying the confederate "was a slave owner. and a brutal master of slaves ".

"Fortunately, he lost this war," said Clyburn. "And I find it pretty interesting that the president is now glorifying a loser." He always said that he hated the losers.

Clyburn adds that Trump "expresses what he has in the heart," noting that the president was doubling his remarks about Charlottesville.

Clyburn also said Biden had "absolutely" reason to focus on Trump's commentary in Charlottesville.

"I think it's the purpose of this campaign, and it will be up to who can bring this country together," he said.

At the August 2017 rally, white nationalists and neo – Nazis wore tiki torches and chanted "The Jews will not replace us", among other slogans.

After the events of 2017, Trump told the media, "You also had very good people on both sides, you had people from this group who were there to protest against having them take a very, very important statue, and changing the name of a Robert E. Lee Park to another name You had people – and I'm not talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, they should be totally doomed – you had a lot of people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. "

Allan Smith

Allan Smith is a political journalist for NBC News.